Vendee Globe - Phillipe Jeantot

Ed Gorman speaks to the man behind the world's toughest yacht race

Phillipe Jeantot will not forget the last Vendee Globe in a hurry. The succession of disasters and rescues deep in the Southern Ocean presented him, as race organiser, with enormous logistical and political challenges and it was he who took much of the flak from those who argued the race was a ridiculous escapade which made unfair demands, particularly on the rescue services in Australia.

Remember the images of Thierry Dubois sitting on the upturned hull of his yacht, which still had its keel on, as huge Southern Ocean rollers swept past. Then there was Tony Bullimore, who spent five days awaiting rescue inside his upturned hull when his keel fell off, and Raphael Dinelli who cheated death when Pete Goss came to his rescue after his boat broke up and sank.

After all of that, tragedy came later in the race when Gerry Roufs vanished off Groupe LG2, 2,600 miles from Chile. The loss of Roufs was a big blow for Jeantot and his co-ordination of the search for the Canadian skipper by other competitors led to a bitter row, and a very public falling out with Isabelle Autissier whom Jeantot accused of giving up the search too easily.

It is not surprising then that Jeantot - a veteran of three BOC round-the-world races and one Vendee - has one simple dream this time round, namely that 24 boats will set off on Sunday on the fourth Vendee Globe and 24 boats will cross the finish line in three or four months time. That, of course, is entirely unrealistic in a race in which between a half and two-thirds of the field can be expected not to complete the course non-stop and without assistance.
Yet Jeantot has reason to be more optimistic this time and he believes that new safety rules, combined with the inclusion of waypoints on the course to prevent skippers straying too far south, will make this a safer race and one in which more boats are likely to finish than hitherto. This time skippers had to complete a trans-ocean race in their boat to qualify and if they subsequently changed the configuration of keels or masts, for example, they had to sail a 2,500-mile passage on top.

The stability characteristics of the Open 60s have been improved making them harder to capsize and many of them now comply with class association rules which require them to self-right after a capsize, either using water ballast or swing keels. The new boats are virtually unsinkable with six watertight compartments and the range of safety and communications equipment on board is more comprehensive than four years ago. The skippers, meanwhile, have had to undergo survival and medical training.

'There is no doubt that the Open 60s are safer now than four years ago, I hope we have made progress here,' Jeantot told madforsailing at his office in Les Sables D'Olonne, high above the pontoons where final preparations on the boats are underway. 'The boats are self-righting, they are unsinkable and many other things. This time I really think we will have less trouble. But you know we still have to learn and maybe this time we will meet other things that we have not been thinking about,' he said.

Jeantot is keenly aware of the debt he and his skippers owe to the Australians and he has gone out of his way to keep in close touch with their rescue services. 'They have sent us all their own conclusions from four years ago and we have made modifications in the light of their point of view. We have kept in close contact with them and let them know what we've done to change the rules. They are very glad about the progress we have made and they have said that, from the experience of the last race, they have learnt a lot about rescue in such extreme conditions and they have improved their services,' he said.

As far as the race goes, Jeantot believes there are up to 12 boats capable of winning and he is looking forward to a tight contest. 'I think it will be a fight from the beginning to the end,' he said. 'It's not just going to be one guy getting ahead and staying there for two or three months as we saw last time, I hope it will be a fight up to the finishing line and it will be very interesting to follow.'

Jeantot believes the current record of 105 days set by Christophe Auguin in the last race can be beaten. 'It's just a matter of the conditions - most of the boats have the potential to beat the record. I'm sure that a few guys are capable of doing it in less than 100 days,' he said. He also believes the French are under greater pressure than ever before from foreign competition and believes Mike Golding and the Swiss skipper Dominique Wavre are both capable of becoming the first non-French winners of this classic.

But he is impressed with Ellen MacArthur too and he was not in the least bit surprised by her stunning win in the single-handed transat earlier this summer. Jeantot explained why the French have taken the 24-year-old from Derbyshire to their hearts. 'The first thing is she's a girl, she is young - the youngest of the competitors - and she speaks French and she has made a big effort to do that so people like that. She is very, very nice and straightforward and people like her simplicity,' he said.